


chase the sunlight

by shineyma



Series: and carry me away [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 12:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10594194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: There's been an incident in Jemma's lab.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [current drag me down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7059394) by [shineyma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma). 



> **Please note:** this is an AU that takes place in the same verse as [current drag me down](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7059394/chapters/16048108). Again. Because there are TOO MANY possibilities for this verse and they'd much rather I write THEM than the next chapter, for some reason. Sigh. This will have no effect on the events of current drag me down, it's just a might-have-been. It also has no connection to the OTHER current drag me down AUs I've previously posted. (I'm sorry, I'm so out of control.)
> 
> Still not caught up on comment replies, but on the bright side I got that paper written yesterday! Yay?
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! <3

Technically, Grant doesn’t really need to go into the field anymore.

He’s head of HYDRA— _a_ head, not _the_ head, but there are only two others left standing and he’s the only one in this hemisphere, so close enough—now, and all that. He’s got people to do his dirty work for him.

Still, he likes to keep his hand in. Call him old fashioned, but there’s just something more _satisfying_ about a job he does himself.

Not satisfying in an erotic way. He’s been accused of getting off on violence (and even went along with it once, just to see the way that bitch Morse’s face twisted up in disgust and horror), but he doesn’t. Not really. It puts an itch in his skin, is all, gives him the kind of energy that needs working off before it turns into something destructive.

It’s okay, though. He’s got people—a person—for _that_ , too.

Only problem is, she’s nowhere to be found.

“Evie,” he says. His assistant looks up from her tablet. “Where’s Jemma?”

She knows he likes a round or two of sex after he’s been in the field. Usually she’d be here by now, sitting quiet and unnoticed on the couch against the wall, waiting for him to be ready for her—or at the very least hanging around outside, if she was feeling bashful.

But she’s not on the couch and she’s not in the hall and he _knows_ she has to know he’s back after the way the prisoner he dragged back with him was screaming when they hauled him off the quinjet. There’s no way anyone on base missed that.

Evie’s mouth does that thing it always does when she doesn’t know how he’s gonna react to something. His eyes narrow.

“Dr. Simmons is in the infirmary,” she says, returning her attention to her tablet. “There was…an incident.”

Something in the way she says it…

“We’ll finish this later,” he says, pushing away from his desk. “Hand the prisoner off to Locke and tell Perez to get his ass on the Blackwood project. I’m getting impatient.”

Evie’s “Yes, sir” follows him out.

The infirmary’s pretty close to his office and he’s gotta admit: it’s not much. He’s got plans for more ( _much_ more), but until Nemesis is up and running, he’s gotta make do with what he’s got, and what he’s got is a long, narrow room that fits twelve beds along one wall and not much else.

First bed’s empty. So is the second.

Jemma’s perched on the edge of the third, knees together and hands folded in her lap, keeping perfectly still as a medic dabs at the blood staining the left side of her face. She’s staring into the middle distance, but as he approaches, her eyes cut to him and widen.

“What the fuck happened?” he asks. The medic startles and spins to face him, which is just stupid. “I was talking to her. Do your job.”

“Y-yes, sir,” the medic stutters. He jerks back around to face Jemma, then stills and grimaces over his shoulder at Grant. “Only, there’s some damage to her throat, so…talking will be painful?”

He makes it a question, but now that Grant’s not distracted by the _gaping wound_ on her face, he notices the bandaging wrapped around Jemma’s neck. That’s not a good sign.

“Fine,” he says, and jabs a finger at Jemma even as she takes a breath to speak. “Don’t talk.”

She closes her mouth.

“Nod or shake your head,” he says. “Did someone hurt you?”

Weirdly, she actually has to stop and think about it. After a second, she shrugs.                                           

Okay, fine.

“Lemme rephrase that,” he says. “Did someone do this to you?”

At that, she nods.

“Is that someone dead?”

Jemma frowns and glances at the medic, who’s moved on to applying some kind of antibacterial cream to her wound. Without so much blood surrounding it, it’s a lot less intense; just a cut stretching from beside her eyebrow to about half an inch below her ear. It’s gonna need some butterfly bandages for sure, but it probably won’t scar.

“Uh, yeah,” the guy says in response to Jemma’s questioning look. “Very dead.”

Grant hears footsteps behind him, clocks them as Markham’s, and turns to meet him.

“Sorry I’m late, sir,” Markham says. “Kebo was filling me in.”

“Oh, yeah?” Grant asks. His second’s a hard guy to read—mostly because his default is calm and blank-faced—but Grant thinks he looks a little bemused. “And?”

“And apparently Dr. Simmons killed three of the lab’s guards.”

…Grant cannot have heard that right. “What.”

“According to witnesses,” Markham says (and that’s definitely his bemused tone), “Dr. Simmons went after the head guard with a scalpel and slit his throat. When two of the other guards moved to subdue her, she stabbed one and brained the other with a microscope.”

Seriously. Is Grant having some kind of breakdown? Was he exposed to something in the field? Is this a hallucination?

“You’re joking.” He turns back to Jemma. “He’s joking, right?”

Jemma bites her lip and looks away. There’s blood staining the collar of her shirt—and, when he checks, her sleeves. And her hands.

“What the actual fuck.” He didn’t notice before, but her wrists are cuffed. Loosely and in front of her, but _still_. “Jemma. Look at me.”

She does.

“Did you seriously kill three of my men?” he asks.

She nods.

Well.

Fuck.

Need hits him like a punch to the gut; he was already buzzing from the fieldwork, but this? It’s a hell of a mental image, his tiny little scientist taking on three guards and _winning_. He’s gonna have to watch the security footage because that? That is damn hot.

But putting his libido aside…it’s pretty damn troubling, too. Last he checked, Jemma’d never taken a life before. For the first time to be three at once? Inside his secure base where she should’ve had no reason to hurt anyone?

There’s a story behind this, and he’s sure he’s not gonna like it.

“You gonna tell me why?”

Jemma hesitates, eyes flickering to the medic and back.

Right, he told her not to talk.

“You can answer that,” he allows. “Ten words or less.”

“Levens touched me,” she rasps. “I was defending myself from the others.”

He spares half a second to be amused, because of _course_ she managed ten words exactly.

But it’s _only_ half a second, after which he sees red.

“Touched you?” he demands. “What do you mean _touched_ you?”

Markham is frowning. “He was on the other side—”

“Not today,” Jemma interrupts. Her voice really does sound awful, but he wants answers too much to stop her. “Other days. He touched me all the time.”

Grant’s heart thunders in his ears. He doesn’t realize he’s fisted his hands until he feels the sting it causes in his bruised knuckles.

“I didn’t like it,” she concludes, lifting her chin. “So I stopped him. For good.”

Maybe it’s a coincidence the medic finishes bandaging Jemma’s face at that exact moment. Or maybe the guy saw Grant’s expression and rushed through the last few bandages so he could make himself scarce.

Either way, he scampers.

“Sir,” Markham says.

It’s a prompt and reminder both; Levens is dead already, so it’s too late for Grant to tear the bastard to pieces for touching what’s his. His anger’s pointless.

Except Levens isn’t the only one involved in this, is he?

There’s a guard off to the side, standing back against the wall. He’s got blood on his face, but there’s no sign of injury. If Grant had to guess…

“You,” he says. The guard snaps to attention. “What’s your name?”

“Bremmer, sir.”

“Bremmer, am I right in thinking you’re stationed in the labs?”

Markham straightens a little at his tone. Jemma shrinks in on herself.

Bremmer, apparently, is too stupid to pick up on it. “Yes, sir! I was ordered to escort Simmons here for treatment.”

“Good.” Grant smiles, which finally seems to tip the guy off that he’s in trouble. “So maybe you can explain to me why Jemma had to take care of this herself.”

“I—um—I don’t—”

Bremmer shrinks back as Grant approaches. He’s not that much taller than the idiot, just an inch or two, but the way Bremmer’s cowering makes it easy to loom.

“Someone’s putting his hands all over my girl,” he says, nice and soft, “you don’t think that’s a problem? You don’t think that needs to be stopped?”

“No! I mean—I—” Bremmer’s eyes dart around, searching for an escape. “They said you wouldn’t care!”

“They _who_?”

“Everyone!” Bremmer’s practically whimpering. It’s pathetic. “The others—Mathers and Versum and—and Dresden and—everyone said it was okay!”

Grant expresses how he feels about that quickly and succinctly: with a single punch that breaks Bremmer’s nose and knocks him down in one. He hits the ground and doesn’t get back up.

“Markham.”

“I’ll have security in Lab 3 rounded up,” Markham says, anticipating him. Grant turns and finds he’s already got his phone out. He also apparently took the liberty of uncuffing Jemma at some point, not that she seems to have noticed; she’s just staring, wide-eyed, at Grant. “You want to deal with them today?”

“No,” Grant decides. “Let ‘em sweat it out in the dungeon overnight. And get the one grunt…what’s his name? The one with the face?”

“Cogan,” Markham supplies.

“Right, Cogan.” Guy’s twenty-three and looks about twelve; he’s not harmless, but he can pass for it, no sweat. “Get Cogan talking to the scientists. I wanna know what they know.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jemma’s still staring.

“Are your face and your throat it?” he asks her. “Can you walk?”

She nods slowly.

“Good,” he says, and returns to the bed to offer her a hand. “Come on.”

It takes her a few seconds to react, but he waits her out, and eventually her hand comes to rest in his. A gentle tug gets her on her feet; a second pulls her into a hug.

Holding her, he can feel the tremor running through her, hear the hitch to her breathing as her hands fist in his shirt. She’s teetering on the edge of a breakdown—no surprise there—and probably in no little amount of shock. Her skin is like ice.

“Get that one to the dungeon, too,” he orders Markham, jerking his chin at Bremmer. Whether he’s unconscious or just smart enough to play it (doubtful), he hasn’t moved from where he fell. “And tell Evie I’m offline for the rest of the night. Anything less than a full-scale invasion, you can handle.”

“I can handle a full-scale invasion, too,” Markham says, straight-faced. “But I’ll let her know.”

“Good man.”

Jemma stumbles a few times on the way to his quarters; after the second time, he lets go of her hand and wraps his arm around her shoulder instead, tucking her into his side. She makes a little sound, low in her throat, and the breath shudders out of her.

(It’s weird.

Not her reaction—it’s pretty typical for a first kill—but _his_ reaction to it. If he’d known this was gonna happen…he would’ve thought he’d think of Kara. She broke down, too, the first time she killed somebody. He would’ve thought he’d be reminded of her.

Instead, he’s thinking of the Bus—of the day that kid at the Academy died. Lying in his bunk that night, he heard her crying in hers, and after an hour or so he went and got her, took her into the lounge and let her cry it out on his shoulder.

He’d forgotten about that.)

By the time they reach his quarters, Jemma’s barely hanging on. He unlocks the door, ushers her in, then lets go of her to close and lock it. By the time he turns back she’s on the floor, forehead on her knees and whole body shaking with the force of her sobs.

“Hey, hey,” he says. “C’mere.”

That’s gotta be hurting her throat, but it’s not like telling a woman to stop crying ever did anybody any good, so he doesn’t mention it. He just picks her up and carries her into the bathroom.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, huh?”

She’s not quite _covered_ in blood, but there’s still a lot of it. Her own on her face and neck and in her hair, and what he’s betting is those guards’ on her hands. Not to mention her clothes, which he knows from personal experience will be feeling heavy and tacky with all the blood that’s soaked into them.

Jemma calms down a little as he helps her out of her shirt (he knows from experience taking a shirt off when you’ve got a head wound can be a bitch; he’s not making her do it alone), and by the time she’s finished redressing, her crying’s mostly stopped.

She _is_ still trembling a bit, but she sits quiet and still on the counter while he wets a washcloth.

He takes it slow, careful to avoid her bandaged cut—and the bandage around her throat, once he gets to her neck. She’s pale under all that blood, but she closes her eyes and tips her face into his touch with a little sigh, so she can’t be doing _too_ bad.

“There,” he murmurs once he’s done. “Isn’t that better?”

Jemma opens her eyes. “Why are you doing this?”

“Don’t talk,” he says. “Give me your hands.”

“You’re angry,” she says, searching his face. Her hands stay tucked under her thighs.

“Not at you,” he promises. “Come on. Hands.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t think you’d care,” she says. “I didn’t—”

The hitch in her voice is a clear indicator she’s about to work herself back up, so he does the only thing he can: he cuts her off with a kiss.

Her breath catches in her throat, and then she melts into him, knees squeezing his sides and arms wrapping around his neck. He keeps it slow and gentle, holds her by the hips and lets his thumbs slip under the waistband of her pajama bottoms.

She’s not shaking anymore.

He doesn’t draw the kiss out. He lets it go on just long enough to settle her and then pulls back.

“You should’ve told me,” he says. Her hair’s a mess, probably from the struggle in the lab; he tucks some of it behind her ear and lets his touch linger on the good side of her face. “I’d’ve killed him for you, saved you the trouble.”

Jemma’s teeth drag at her lower lip. “I—”

She stops, shakes her head, and twists to turn on the sink. Silently, he steps back, giving her room to slip off the counter—but he doesn’t leave. He stands and watches as she scrubs at her hands, turning her words over in his mind.

 _I didn’t think you’d care_. Didn’t think he’d care if she killed some of his men?

Or didn’t think he’d care that she needed to?

After a few minutes, the water’s hot enough to be visibly steaming. Grant steps forward, puts his hand on her back to anchor her as he turns it off.

“That’s enough,” he says.

Jemma stills. Her eyes lift to meet his in the mirror.

“You called me your girl,” she whispers. He wonders if it’s emotion or the injury that makes her sound so hoarse. “When Bremmer…you called me your girl.”

“Yeah.”

He thinks of the steel that was in her eyes earlier—just for a second there, back in the infirmary, when she said she didn’t like Levens touching her. It’s been a long time since he saw that kind of confidence in her.

That’s his fault. He’s honest enough to admit: he broke her a little. She wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t. It’s not like he went crazy on her or anything—just applied a bit of pressure here, gave her some attention there, that kind of thing—but her morals never would’ve let her work for him if he hadn’t tugged on her strings first, and that tugging did some damage.

He doesn’t _regret_ it, per se—has barely even thought about it since he finished doing it—but after that glimpse of the old her (brief as it was), he can admit he’s sorry it was necessary. That’s…an unusual feeling.

If she’d told him, he would’ve killed Levens for touching her. He still might kill the rest of them for letting it happen.

Jemma’s still staring at him in the mirror.

“That’s because you are,” he says, and pulls her—unresisting—away from the sink. “Come on, you oughta eat something. It’ll help with the shock.”

She bites her lip, but it’s not quite enough to disguise her reaction.

Grant chooses not to examine his own relief at the sight of her smile.


End file.
